Rare mammal discovered, once lived at zoo

This undated handout photo provided by Mark Gurney shows a olinguito. Imagine a raccoon with a teddy bear face that is so cute it\'s hard to resist, let alone overlook. But somehow science did _ until now. Researchers Thursday announced a rare discovery of a new species of a mammal that belongs to the grouping of large creatures that include dogs, cats and bears: the olinguito. The raccoon-sized critters leap through the trees of the cloud forests of Ecuador and Colombia at night, according to a Smithsonian researcher who has spent the past decade tracking them. (AP Photo/Mark Gurney)

By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) – Imagine a mini-raccoon with a teddy bear face that is so cute it’s hard to resist, let alone overlook. But somehow science did – until now.

Researchers announced Thursday a rare discovery of a new species of mammal called the olinguito. The reddish-brown animal is about 14 inches long with an equally long tail and weighs about 2 pounds.

It belongs to a grouping of large creatures that include dogs, cats and bears.

The critter leaps through the trees of mountainous forests of Ecuador and Colombia at night, according to a Smithsonian researcher who has spent the past decade tracking them.

But the adorable olinguito (oh-lihn-GEE’-toe) shouldn’t have been so hard to find. One of them once lived in the Smithsonian-run National Zoo in Washington for a year in a case of mistaken identity.

“It’s been kind of hiding in plain sight for a long time” despite its extraordinary beauty, said Kristofer Helgen, the Smithsonian’s curator of mammals.

The little zoo critter, named Ringerl, was mistaken for a sister species, the olingo. Before she died in 1976, Ringerl was shipped from zoo to zoo in Louisville, Ky., Tucson, Ariz., Salt Lake City, Washington and New York City to try to get it to breed with other olingos.

She wouldn’t.

“It turns out she wasn’t fussy,” Helgen said. “She wasn’t the right species.”

The discovery is described in a study in the journal ZooKey.

Helgen first figured olinguitos were different from olingos when he was looking at pelts and skeletons in a museum. He later led a team to South America in 2006.

“When we went to the field we found it in the very first night,” said study co-author Roland Kays of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. “It was almost like it was waiting for us.”

It’s hard to figure how olingos and onlinguitos were confused for each other.

“How is it different? In almost every way that you can look at it,” Helgen said.

“It looks kind of like a fuzzball … kind of like a cross between a teddy bear and a house cat,” Helgen said.

It eats fruit and has one baby at a time. Helgen figures there are thousands of olinguitos in the mountainous forest, traveling through the trees at night which makes them hard to see.

While new species are found regularly, usually they are tiny things like insects and not mammals, the warm-blooded advanced class of animals that have hair, live births and mammary glands in females.

Outside experts said this discovery is not merely renaming something, but a genuine new species – with three new subspecies. It’s the type of significant find that hasn’t happened in the Americas for about 35 years.

“Most people believe there are no new species to discover, particularly of relatively large charismatic animals,” said Case Western Reserve University anatomy professor Darin Croft. “This study demonstrates that this is clearly not the case.”

The olinguito is the smallest member of the raccoon family of mammals.

The researchers only saw olinguitos in Ecuador and Colombia, but they said they could also be living in parts of Panama, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, and Guyana, based on their cloud forest habitat.

The olingo is also native to Central and South America.

The North Carolina museum is already selling olinguito stuffed animals for about $15. Proceeds will benefit habitat preservation for the creatures.